Serenade Resolution Issue
Korรงa 2015 - 8th NSC of EYP Albania
Editorial Resolutions.
On behalf of the Media Team of the 8th National Selection Conference of EYP Albania, we are more than It all comes down to just one simple word. All your honoured to have been here in Korรงa with you and we efforts and your passion is concentrated in an amount are proud of your personal development throughout of words that represents your ideas and your incredible these days. We hope that this session will leave you with dedication to these days spent in Korรงa. many beautiful memories and we also hope that a big smile will come on your face when you go through the This little guide will take you by the hand in exploring pages of Serenade and the pictures taken by us. the different issues that have been discussed between yesterday morning and today in the afternoon. You can discover what your friends focused on and you Oleksandra Gipsh & Elisa Martinelly can be aware of the complexity of the EU in its many Editors of the 8th National Selection Conference of facets. Tomorrow is the day when you can share your EYP Albania ideas and speak your mind and we encourage you once again not to miss this occasion to widen your horizons.
Brought to you by Dafne Bajraktari (AL) Daan Brouwer (NL) Sibora Kashari (AL) Mateo Kuka (AL) Christ Ligori (AL) Marina Mantsai (AL/GR) Tea Rama (AL) Margen Stepa (AL) Arber Bozgo (AL) Eduard Kele (RO) Dimos Papadimitriou (GR) Oleksandra Gipsh (UA) Elisa Martinelli (IT)
Table of Contents ITRE II AFET DROI ECO EMPL LIBE REGI ITRE I
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ITRE II
The road towards innovation by Margen Stepa (AL)
outlined by the programme could be reached through a deeper collaboration between Member States.
Germany, Sweden, Finland and Norway are the most advanced countries of EU in technology and research Youngsters need to be more motivated when it comes and will most likely bring a higher level of innovation to approach these challenging, yet fundamental projects since Horizon 2020 could be really helpful for in the upcoming years. society through the enhancement research and innoThe problem is that more collaboration between big vation. countries and small countries is needed. While in the most advanced countries there is a huge amount of The committee on Industry, Technology and Research funds dedicated to research project, in less developed II encourages Western Balkan countries to cooperate ones there is a lack of facilities and money invested in in order to create new clubs, organizations and startthis field. Therefore, collaborating with big countries ups with different mentors and scientists from all over will make the project become more successful as they the world in order to have a more effective and faster knowledge sharing. offer a Hi-Tech support and high founds. Starting collaboration and investing in small countries A wider and deeper collaboration may be the key for such as Albania, could be bring a lot of profits because making a step forwards towards a higher level of innoof the small market they have right now. Investing in vation and development in the whole EU. these countries could be a good idea as they can raise the profits of their markets and the ones of the countries who have invested in them. Another problem is that every country should be fully aware of the goals set by Horizon 2020. The aims
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AFET
No further enlargement
by Sibora Kashari (AL)
There will be no further enlargement of the EU in the next five years During these two days, the delegates of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) have been discussing about the case of the EU membership criteria nowadays. When it comes to problems they have considered fundamental to tackle, they can be further investigated in three different, but related aspects: the social, political and economic one. The first one is about discrimination between the candidate and potential candidate status. Human rights are not being respected that much and racism is expanding, especially towards the minorities living inside those country which are asking to become EU Member States. The second one has a wider field since the Balkan countries are still divided because of historic issues among each other. Moreover, some points that should be regulated in order to reach the desired criteria for entering the EU are the reduction, or even
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better the elimination of organised crime and a good functioning rule of law. Deeply disturbed by the high rate of corruption, a transparency in decision-making guided by the EU seems a solution that would bring the country closer to the EU standards. Concerning education, the committee proposed to look after the lack of professionalism and to ameliorate the educational system, starting from the objectivism of the books used in the schools. Finally, the strength of economy is not as high as expected; the resources must be seen and analyzed twice. If the mechanization of the industry and agriculture is needed to develop these resources, the government must also invest in creating more job opportunities, in particular for unemployed youngsters. The cooperati on between the states of Balkan has to become more solid and efficient. In this way, a stable, but important development of all the Balkan region will take place and will make the countries’ way towards entering the EU easier and faster.
DROI
Travelling in time by Dafne Bajraktari (AL) During the first day of committee work a question was asked: How would you explain DROI to a five year old? The answer of Arbri “So imagine this group of kids who are really good friends with one another, and one day there’s this new kid, who is new in town, and really different from them. He doesn’t fit much with the other cool kids, but nonetheless they agree with one another to help their new friend fit and make him feel at ease. However, some of the kids make fun of their new friend in disagreement with what they decided, and so they make him feel not integrates. DROI is there to remind these kids about their agreement to help the new one and prevent the group from making fun of him. So that’s what DROI is, but in its case it has to be dealing with grown up adults.”
the Middle East, and many have their eyes set on Europe. This is putting pressure on asylum systems across the continent as the EU struggles to form a consensus among governments. The International refugee law, as formulated in 1951 and 1967, declares that no nation can turn away a person in need of protection and that refugees have a right to seek asylum upon arrival. By outsourcing their immigration control to other countries, EU members can claim to be technically in observance of the law. Especially in the last few years, asylum seekers are not able to leave their unstable and sometimes despotic countries and the only way to find a better life is through illegal trafficking.
The Committee on Human Rights discussed of being However, the topic is actually dealing with migrants concerned about the fact that most asylum seekers are coming from Syria, Libya, Tunisia and Western Bal- not treated properly in they country where they apkan, the human rights violations of asylum seekers ply. In other cases, problems as overpopulation issues, in some EU Member States. Why is this topic hard? insufficient administrative capacities, bureaucratic Let’s go back to the early 90s when European policy procedures, human rights violations and xenophobia on asylum seekers gradually focused on minimizing occur daily. the number of people who could have been successful applicants. Nowadays, about 56 million people There is indeed a long way to go in order to make sure in the world have been displaced by conflict, the high- that no human being is left without a place to feel safe est number of people pushed out of their homes since and eventually call home, but it is clear that this issue World War II. The vast majority are fleeing Africa and needs to be tackled to its roots.
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ECON
Economic integration in the EU by Tea Rama (AL) ruption. This is slowing down the integration process, and all the aforementioned reasons are making these countries grow further away from being a part of the EU. The topic of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, may look simple at a first glance, but it is actually very challenging. There are a lot of opinions and ideas circulating about new ways to promote economic development in candidate states, and Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries. There have been numerous debates and discussions regarding these ideas, making it seem as if it is simple to give an answer to this problem since everyone seems to already have an opinion on it. But when swimming deeper into the topic and when studying it seriously, the topic appears to be far from simple..
Another issue they tackled was Russia’s role in deepening relationships between the EU and EaP countries because of their mutual interest in creating an Euro-Asian Union. But of course, stating the problems is not the hardest part, is it? The first solution the delegates came up with was that the EU should encourage Balkan countries in improving their diplomacy, and helping in initiating the negotiations between Russia and the EU.
All the delegates worked hard and did their best, and with a little help from their chairs, they managed to Among the problems that the delegates pointed out, create a resolution that will most definitely be worth they mentioned the disability of candidate states and supporting during the General Assembly. potential candidate countries to keep up with EU’s requirements, thus making it very hard for them to enter the EU. The delegates also believe that the fact that the EU does not offer a free trade market for this countries is causing a huge loss of profits for them. Another concern that the committee pointed out, is the misusing of EU funds due to high rates of cor-
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EMPL
Defeating youth unemployment in the EU by Christ Ligori (AL) The relentless rise in unemployment over the past years is one of the most severe consequences of the 2008 economic and financial crisis in the EU-28 area. Young people, being one of the most vulnerable groups, were the ones hit hardest by this change and youth unemployment increased drastically reaching figures as high as 62%. The economic crisis was the catalyst for this problem, but its roots can be found deeper in situations and behaviours that have become the pattern of our society. We just have to notice the difference between the market’s needs, especially when in comes to different living habits of society. Obviously, a great number of people wants to earn a decent salary, but there are not enough jobs for them. Moreover, there are professions where it is easy to get a job, but not many people want to go for them. As a matter of facts, if people were more informed of what the market needs they would not have so many employment problems. The second problem is the contradiction according to which one person needs experience to get experience and be qualified to enter the labour market and get employed. Sadly, youth unemployment causes an increasing in crime and in illegal work in a vast majority of the Member States. Even when they want to move to another country to get a job, they really often encounter language and other barriers, making it more difficult to actually get employed.
In order to solve these problems, young people should have access to vocational training in high school to better understand which study path they should follow and which has the highest chances of employment. Small businesses should be supported in hiring young people, through offering, for example, tax incentives and subsidies to them. Also young entrepreneurs should be encouraged by different means; sometimes youngsters have exceptionally good ideas that could turn into a great profit, but they cannot make it without support. Internships and practices are also another good way for young people to increase their experience in their chosen working field, even though the wages are not high in the majority of cases. Finally, there already are plans and organisations in the EU, whose objectives are lowering youth unemployment and helping young people in getting a better education and eventually finding a job. However, the main problem with these already existing structures is their limited budget and they cannot support youngsters as much as they could. The most difficult challenge for the EU remains the way the different Member States are allocating money to programmes aimed at reducing youth unemployment and the discrepancies among their various labour markets.
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LIBE
Integration through participation by Marina Mantsai (AL/GR)
The Committee on Civil Liberties has been working really hard in the past two days in order to finding solutions regarding the urgent issue of the non EU migrants’ integration in their new life. Despite the limited time provided, they managed to focus on the most important points that define the evaluation of the discussion.
point, language represents the tool for communication and mutual understanding among native and immigrants. Furthermore, the most important way to motivate migrants to participate into political procedures is by exercising their right to vote a representative who confronts migrants’ rights.
When it comes to allowing the immigrants to enter the labour market, a dilemma on whether it would be useful to enforce companies to accept greater percentages of employed immigrants or not. The final decision of the committee is to offer a fixed percentage First of all, the core of the difficulty in immigrants’ of immigrants that should be employed to ensure that integration in the political and economic system of the native population is also considered in the enroltheir new country is the rise of extremist parties which ment process. embrace discrimination against minorities and are the source of social and political exclusion. Another Immigration is a really serious matter and delegates argument, equally vital as the above mentioned one, faced it with absolute dedication. Their ambition is to concerns the effectiveness of the existing laws. The arouse immigrants’ interest in taking part in the politmeasures taken to protect immigrant’s communities ical and social aspect of the society they just encounand ensure their security have not been implemented tered as well as to build trustworthy relationships between citizens from different ethnic backgrounds. and put into practice yet. The committee’s main goal is to encourage migrants to join and influence political and social life while promoting cultural diversity. The directive proposed to set the learning of the native language as mandatory aims to help immigrants in adapting to their new life, at the same time preserving their national identity. At this
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REGI
Raising trust at the basis of society by Mateo Kuka (AL) are somehow excluded from their very own representatives, the same ones they voted during elections with the hope that their voices would be heard through them. Being left alone in this everlasting battle, citiThe committee on Regional Development dealt with zens, want to directly address the highest institutions the issue of decentralization, which means the distri- by ignoring the respective local institutions, thus creatbution of the three powers- legislative, executive and ing a more static bureaucracy. juridical- into mechanisms that must necessarily work together, and the promotion of good-governance in Taking into consideration all the above-described probthe Balkans through some specific principles set in the lems, the committee came up with several proposals Charter for Multi-level governance. However, that can and suggestions, including steps that should be taken only be done with the help of different organisations in order to have a successful decentralisation successand both local and European institutions in coopera- ful and to achieve good-governance. Alleviating the tion with one another such as the Union for the Med- sense of abandonment among people and help them iterranean and the Committee of the Regions of the to participate more actively into the decision-making processes is as important as finding solutions to the EU. concrete problems that were indicated. Their main obstacle is the high level of corruption among the countries of the Balkans that creates a lack If there are many problems to face, the most importof trust towards the local governments. Moreover, most ant one seems to raise the trust of citizens towards of these countries come from communist regimes and their local governments and the delegates understood there are still people that occupy important positions that this first step is fundamental to reach the set goal. that directly or indirectly support some characteristics of the previous form of government, especially if they are fruitful for their very personal interests. The low-level transparency of the local institutions that keep citizens uninformed about issues that directly affect them is another issue that needs to be addressed. This promotes a more general confusion, as people
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ITRE I
The cruciality of secure energy supplies
by Daan Brouwer (NL) as Russia for a majority of its energy supply. With the Ukrainian crisis, prices for Russian gas vary greatly and Just as European Youth Parliament sessions are fueled now depend on the relations between the Russian govby coffee, without oil and gas Europe would grind to ernment and the state in question, also with the risk a halt. Luckily, the past several days the committee on that gas supplies will be used for political purposes. Industry Technology Research and Energy has been hard at work discussing how to ensure the supply of The committee wished to address this problem by forming a single energy market, where energy subsienergy to Europe. dies would be made available not dependent on naNowadays, there is no single European energy market tional borders, but according to the efficiency, valued and Member States both individually import oil and on a case by case scenario. In this way, Member States gas and independently fund renewable energy produc- would import oil and gas together, hopefully lowering tion. It is then fundamental to understand what the EU prices but more importantly removing the potential for could do to unify its energy policy and what role the energy politics to be used to promote disunity within the EU. candidate Member States can play. The fact that there is not a single unified energy policy causes suboptimal efficiency and leaves Member States more vulnerable. Germany heavily invests in renewable energy, mainly in the form of solar panels, even though, against the stereotypical image of the Germans, is not very efficient. In more southernly sunnier places an equal investment in renewable energy could have generated much more renewable energy and by increasing cross border cooperation not efficient investments could be avoided. Moreover, many European countries are dependent on other countries, such
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Last but not least, some countries, such as the the Baltic states, are not well interconnected; promoting transportation links within them would help alleviating energy dependence by providing an alternative way of distribution. The challenges faced by Europe are complex but not insurmountable and the intelligent solutions offered at this session should go a long way towards ensuring energy security for the European Union.